Features

'Dem wreck me'

Margaret Fletcher - file

[Editor's note: It was a dark moment in Jamaica's history - July 14th - 15th 1999, when a dastardly order was executed to forcibly remove a number of street people from the 'worthy' roads of the second city of Montego Bay. Months of ranting, thousands of dollars on an enquiry and no one was held accountable. Back then the abused people were the nameless, faceless 'Mobay Street People'. We will now put a face and name to some of these abused people. Today we continue our interview with 74-year-old Margaret Fletcher.

WHEN FLETCHER SAT down for THE STAR exclusive while she visited the Community for the Upliftment of the Mentally Ill (CUMI), she vividly described that night when she was awakened at midnight, July 15, by strange men prodding her to get into a truck.

"I didn't know what was going on," she said, her fingers dancing wildly around the crochet thread in her lap. "They say to me that they going to take us to hospital but I say to them, afta mi nuh sick." This, she claims, did not deter her assailants from cramming her and several others into the vehicle.

"Dem even tie up some of the man dem wid big rope," she said pausing to adjust her glasses. "It was uncomfortable in there wid all of us."

Interestingly, while Fletcher admitted she had no idea where the men were taking her, she said their spirits were not completely broken as some even broke out into song.

"We sing hymn until daybreak when we reach St. Elizabeth and dem (the drivers) say unload," she said. "Who never come out quick enough them just pitch dem out."

When asked if she was frightened when she realised she was now in an alien place, Fletcher stopped crocheting and asked: "Den mi could feel good about it? I was barefoot, dem neva even mek me put on mi shoes. "We were just surprised that they would pick us up and leave us in a place like that,"

Fletcher said, shoes or not, she found herself walking to Santa Cruz. "We see a man and wi tell him what happened to us."

Soon, the word spread and the community donated money, and food. "A lady named Claudette give me money to go back to Montego Bay," she said. "I go from Black River to Sav-la-mar and then tek a bus to Montego Bay."

But she could not force herself to make a fresh start. "I could not stay there at the streetside where they don't know me. I had to go back to Sam Sharpe square," she insisted. It was roughly 24 hours before she could make her way back to Montego Bay.

Fletcher had been living beside the fountain in the Sam Sharpe square for four years prior to her abduction. She never wandered the streets, she became a seamstress by day and a street sweeper by night after she claims her house in Cambridge was broken into.

"Dem wreck me, dem wreck me," she kept repeating, "I couldn't stay there."

When she returned to Montego Bay, the Parish Council took her for mental health evaluation at the Cornwall Regional Hospital.

Nurse administrator at CUMI, Joy Crooks told THE STAR that while Fletcher has had a history of mental instability, she is on mild antipsychotics and is able to function like a regular individual.

Of the other individuals, there are records of two in private nursing homes, Kaylene Forbes at the Community Group Home in Liguanea, St. Andrew, and Margaret Fletcher, at the Channa Watson Nursing Home.

Delbert Gibbs, 59, lives on his own in St . James, Vernon Gibson, 58, in Ocho Rios, St. Ann, Roy Thompson in Mount Pleasant, Portland, Raymond Wilson in St. James and Almond Headley in Hanover. Daniel Watkin, 75, Andy Jones, 48, Carl Sawyers, 30, and Wycliff Findlater all reside at the St. James Infirmary. Dorothy Campbell and Winston Walker, who were also placed at the infirmary died last year.

Authorities are unable to locate Michael McLoud, Cedrick Bennett,and Jennifer McLoud. Henry McFarlene, 58, has since returned to the streets.